Monthly Archives: March 2017

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My Writing, My Identity

Should I even apologize for neglecting to blog? It’s becoming a bad habit. Sorry, True Believers!

Part of the reason for my absence lately is my increasing busyness. I’ve written often about time management, and while some of my busyness is my own doing, much of it lately has been thrust upon me by outside forces. Most notably, my “day job.” Whenever people quit or are unavailable—as has been happening recently—it invariably throws more responsibility on me because I’m competent, reliable, and available. It’s supposed to be a part-time job, but I’ve been getting full-time hours (which has led me to call it “my part-time full-time job”). This has eaten into my writing time like Pac-Man would an apple.

I’m not happy at my day job.

There, I said it.

I took this job thinking it would be temporary and would allow me time to pursue my true passions. While I’m grateful to have the steady income and enjoy (most of) my co-workers, I feel like I’m not doing what God created me to do. When I have to work long hours and lose writing time, I feel this most potently. I get annoyed when people see me not as a writer, an author, an artist, and/or a creator but as my day job. I don’t care if it’s, unfortunately, where the majority of my time is going. It does not define me. It is not what I want to be doing. If I had my way, I’d be living like most of the great writers, who spend eight hours a day working away on their craft.

As you would expect, I’ve been reflecting on my identity. I think of myself as a writer. That’s what I tell people I do for a living. Yes, I add that I’m working a part-time day job until I can write full-time, but writing is always mentioned first and foremost. That’s why I hate when I have weeks (or months) where the day job consumes more of my time. I start to feel like I’m lying to people. Most of all, I fear complacency will seize me, and I’ll stop writing, resigned to the humdrum of my daily labor.

However, in order to have a healthy identity, I believe, one must have a multifaceted one. I’m not just a writer. I want that to be a bigger part of me (and I do believe it is already a big part), but it isn’t all of my identity. Lisa Edelstein said in the movie Keeping the Faith, “I am many things, no one thing defines me.” (FYI, I found that quotation with a Google search. I’ve not seen the movie). I’m also a Christian, a man, a brother, a son, a conservative, a gamer, and a ballroom dancer, among many others. By having so many smaller identities within my larger one, it prevents me from becoming totally dependent on any one of them for my self-worth. I could, God forbid, be in a car accident tomorrow that damages my hands or my brain, thereby robbing me of the ability to write. It would be devastating, but hopefully once the dust of grief settled, I’d have other things to fall back on to form a new identity.

In the meantime, I’m gonna keep fighting to preserve and protect my writing time!

What facets make up your identity? Are you too dependent on one or two? If you’re a writer, what else are you? How would you cope with losing part of identity?

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Weekend Report: Michigan Statewide Youth Convention

Eric Anderson (left) and I representing Nerd Chapel at the Michigan Statewide Youth Convention.

My friend/co-author Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel, tabled at a convention last weekend, though it wasn’t a comic-con. No, it was the Michigan Statewide Youth Convention in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Eric got a table there to promote Nerd Chapel, part of which was selling our devotional, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom. He asked to attend to help him out. I was only able to make it Saturday (the event ran from Friday to Sunday), but Saturday was when most of the action happened.

It took me a little longer than I expected to arrive (closer to two hours instead of 90 minutes), but that gave me extra time to listen to the audiobook of That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, which I’d been meaning to read for a while. I arrived at the Radisson Hotel in downtown, and after fighting with way too many one-way streets (and I thought downtown Fort Wayne had too many), I barely stepped out of my car before an older black woman came up to me begging me to give her money for gas so she could get back to Gary, Indiana, going on about loving Jesus and thanking Him like a southern Baptist. Against my better judgment, I gave her some money. She said she’d pay me back through the mail the following Monday, so I wrote my address on one of my bookmarks and gave it to her. Honestly, I feel like I got suckered. I’m going soft.

Anyway, I walked inside and connected with Eric. Since it was lunchtime, we explored the area looking for a place to eat. We had a short time because he was holding a session at 2pm about using your passions missionally. We tried Subway, but the line was too long. Then we walked a few blocks to a local McDonald’s.

I watched the table for a bit while Eric was downstairs for the session. He asked me to join him a little later because he wanted me to talk a bit about the work I’d done as a Christian in the publishing industry. I mostly stood to the side while Eric did most of the talking, which is a switch for us, usually. I spoke about meeting a young would-be writer at Gen-Con a few years ago at my table and talking with him for almost 45 minutes. Then a bit later he gave me the floor to talk about working in the publishing industry. Eric closed the session with a Q&A. First, he asked if anyone had any serious questions, of which there were few, and then he opened it up to “nerd” questions, of which there were many. A few students even specifically asked me questions about writing. I spent a half-hour talking with several students about comics, Star Wars, and anime afterward.

The rest of the afternoon was relatively quiet. I spoke with some of the people from the other ministries around us. Eric and I had dinner at the fancy bar and grill in the hotel (courtesy of the convention). When the main session was about to start at 7pm, lots of students and youth leaders came to us wanting to learn more about Nerd Chapel or buy books. They said they loved what we were doing and that they’d never heard of ministries like this. Eric and I were encouraged to hear that.

It was once again quiet during the main session. Eric ran lights during it, while I stayed outside the auditorium to watch the table and do some writing. Then for about 30 minutes afterward at 9pm, I was talking with people and selling books. I even met a teenage girl who was once part of a nerd ministry/club/Facebook group with us. She had pink hair to boot.

With that, I joined Eric downstairs in the game room where teens could play video games—include Nintendo 64(!)—and board games. I brought my copies of Star Wars: Epic Duels and Sentinels of the Multiverse. As you’d expect, Epic Duels was a big hit. I played with several teen boys who’d seen me earlier in the day at Eric’s session. We geeked out and had a great time. One of their mothers watched for a few minutes, knowing her son would probably want the game. He did. I told him, “Good luck. The game usually sells for a hundred dollars now.” He seemed determined, though.

I departed for home after that.

All in all, it was a good weekend. Eric and I sold many books and made ourselves known to more people.

Here’s Eric’s blog about the weekend.

This weekend I attend Hall of Heroes Comic-Con in Elkhart, Indiana, though not as a vendor.

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English Grammar is Racist?!

So much BS in 140 characters.

(Note to my readers: I’m getting back into the habit of blogging on my normal basis. It’s proven to be difficult with my busyness. My apologies).

I’ve heard, read, and sometimes written a lot of BS in my life, but yesterday I heard something on a local radio talk show that has officially on my top five list of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard:

Proper English grammar is racist.

Really?

Really?

REALLY?

It was part of a press release from the University of Washington Tacoma’s Writing Center, which said, 

“Linguistic and writing research has shown clearly for many decades that there is no inherent ‘standard’ of English. Language is constantly changing. These two facts make it very difficult to justify placing people in hierarchies or restricting opportunities and privileges because of the way people communicate in particular versions of English.”

The Center’s director, Dr. Asoa Inoue, went further by asserting that racism has created unfair standards in education itself. “Racism is pervasive. It is in the systems, structures, rules, languages, expectations, and guidelines that make up our classes, school, and society.”

I read this press release, the statement itself, and the response from the university when the controversy ignited. While I don’t normally get political in my blogs, this so annoyed me because it touches on something important to me, and I thought I should say something.

First, all of UW’s claims seem to be generalizations. There are no specifics offered. I assume they think people make racist assumptions based on how others talk and write. In other words, if they don’t use “proper” grammar, they presume they’re uneducated and/or stupid based on how they communicate. If they have a certain accent and are of a certain ethnicity, this reinforces certain negative prejudices. At least, that’s how I understand what UW is saying. The statement goes so far as to say that English grammar is somehow full of “microagressions.” How it does is never explained in clear detail. Honestly, the statements seem to have more to do with education than language itself.

The problem with this is it ignores reality and cast a shadow on those, like myself, who pride themselves on communicating clearly with good grammar. Yes, English is constantly changing and evolving. Listen to a few episodes of “The History of English” podcast to see that. But something else you’ll learn from that podcast is that accents and dialects denote someone’s upbringing, culture, and education level. It’s simply a fact. (Yes, I know there are plenty of intelligent people out there who speak in dialects that use less-than-perfect grammar). The problem isn’t language and grammar; it’s people who don’t take the time to get to know someone based on how that person communicates. This is equivalent to blaming a murder on the gun and not the murderer. Does it make me some pretentious racist because I say, “My friend and I,” instead of, “My friend and me”?

UW released another press release responding to the controversy probably because the “blogosphere” brought up an obvious problem: if proper English is racist, why teach it? UW’s Writing Center said,

“The Writing Center statement is not about changing the standard for how UW Tacoma teaches commonly accepted English, grammar and composition. UW Tacoma students achieve thorough proficiency in grammar and English expected in higher education and the workplace. Faculty demand a high level of writing proficiency. Our graduates are successful in a wide array of fields.”

Sounds like backpedaling to me. They claim that teaching proper grammar makes people racist because they assume those who don’t use it and instead speak in a dialect will be seen as ignorant, and since most dialects are used by minorities, it reinforces racism. Yet they say they will teach students English to help them be successful. In other words, they know students need to learn good written communication skills to excel in their vocations despite it fostering racism. So, does that mean all great orators, writers, and communicators are all racist? Isn’t the university teaching racism by teaching proper grammar? They can’t have it both ways.

If I met a black person who talked like Snoop Dogg in this commercial, I wouldn’t understand him. I’d probably assume he listened to rap music and might possibly be a thug along with some other presumptions. Why? Because that’s what is commonly associated with people who talk like that. That doesn’t make me racist. It’d simply be reality. Now, would that stop me from talking with the person? No. Would I be surprised to find out he wasn’t a gangster? Probably. But I wouldn’t be so closeminded as to assume this person couldn’t be an intelligent, upstanding member of society.

Language is part of one’s self-presentation. People will make judgments for good or ill based on how one speaks. That is a fact. Labeling people “racist” because of this will only breed more tension and resentment. Must we all speak in the same dialect/accent/language? That is impossible to do. That is, unless, you suspend all English education. It’s much easier to speak in broken, dumbed down English. Doing that, however, will only create chaos because communication will be hampered.

All of this just seems like yet more propaganda insisting there’s still an epidemic of racism in this country, and that people are racist without knowing it. Haven’t you noticed how more and more stories keep hitting the news claiming innocuous things are somehow racist? It seems to be a determined effort to either make some people feel guilty for being “racist” when they aren’t or to convince others they’re victims of racism when they aren’t. That’s as much as I want to say on the subject because going further would require more words and time than I can give right now. I’ll simply say that nothing lasting can be built on a foundation of guilt, anger, and/or hatred.

Thanks for reading this blog full of “racist” English grammar.

What are your thoughts on this? Is proper English grammar somehow racist?